McSweeney's Issue 53

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #53

by Dave Eggers (Editor), Chelsea Bieker, Daniel Gumbiner

Packed in Issue 53's purpose-built plastic bag are eight stories printed on party balloons, which one must blow up to read. Gracing these particolored balloons are arresting new stories from Carmen Maria Machado, Percival Everett, Lauren Groff, Kima Jones, Amelia Gray, Rebecca Makkai, and Sarah Wisby. You’ll also find, alongside these eight inflatable stories, a vinyl-bound hardcover book containing electrostatically charged new work from Lesley Nneka Arimah, Jamie Figueroa, Namwali Serpell, C Pam Zhang, and many more besides.

Perfect for decorating a birthday party, reading and then popping as a zen meditation, or repeatedly blowing up and releasing in order to observe their whimsical flight around the room, these balloons will provide endless enrichment. Inside Issue 53 you'll uncover a medically inexplicable hunger for forks, a world of unclothed single women, a bevy of dead dads infesting a city, a mystical power within the dismembered torso of a mummified bishop, and oh so much more.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

100 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.

Reviews

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars just because I didn’t love every short story in there

However the stories were SO BIZARRE and reminded me of a short story class I took in college. I loved how out there they were and how the writers really created this whole setting and world within only a short number of pages. Many were definitely symbolic and messages about our society which made me think. But sometimes the stories got a little too weird and symbolic and I feel like I lost the meaning. Overall I would def read something like this again

[Timons Esaias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me admit that I have not read the flash fictions on the balloons. I am reluctant to cut them out of their package, though I also realize they won't last forever.

I note that this issue is almost entirely female-authored, and that a high percentage of the pieces are speculative fiction of the magical realism sort; but I don't see any editorial statement about either element.

This number partakes of the literary fiction tendency to writing stories about Really Bad Behavior among the Poor & Drinking Classes, but the pieces were well-written and imaginative. My favorite piece was "Skinned" by Leslie Nneka Arimah. It imagines a society where unmarried eligible women must go naked in society. At some point her parents take away their clothing, and they only get to wear clothing when taken up by a man. There are, however, as always, exceptions.

The very short epistolary piece by Namwali Serpell (in whose The Old Drift I have a bookmark right now) was effective, and gave me some ideas. I think writing a letter to an inanimate object would be a very good writing exercise.

Zoe Young's "Angel in the Architecture" imagines an angel crashing down through the oculus of Rome's Pantheon, and exhibiting some interesting behaviors. I really liked the idea and the course of it, but it also left me convinced that the author had never actually been in the place. The final trajectory, for instance, is not actually possible under the current suggestions of physics. Still, it was both striking and fun.

I would not be surprised at finding any of these stories in a Year's Best anthology, even though they weren't knocking my Mephistos off, (except the Arimah, and the Young premise) hence the star rating I feel compelled to give.

[Jim Lang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent collection from McSweeney's. Leaving aside the novelty of stories printed on balloons, the stories in the book are pretty consistently fantastic. I wasn't familiar with any of the writers in this issue, and found a few that I want to follow. There's a high degree of fantasy or magical realism in this volume (we have ghostly dads silently haunting just about every apartment in a city, a young girl who eats forks, and an angel that decides to visit the Vatican). There's also some odd real world stories, like the one about a weird cult that attracts a teenage girl, or the two women trying to look after a developmentally delayed sister. We also get to look into an African society where unmarried women are expected to remain nude.

This book is printed on some of the thickest, loveliest paper, and has an old-school vinyl cover. It's a thing of beauty. And then there are the balloons...

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

A particularly pleasing collection of stories. Most combined a tone of realism with a flourish of the fantastic. Just the kind of combination I really enjoy. The balloons were fun but generally lightweight (LOL).

[Bogdana Simina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cool idea to print stories on baloons. I only hope they will last. I’ve already photographed all of them inflated, so I can read the stories by magnifying each photo, anytime I want to remember them.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

The quality of the stories in the book itself is reasonably good, and my favorites were Skinned, by Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Vinegar on the Lips of Girls, by Julia Dixon Evans. I wasn’t wild about the supplemental “stories” printed on balloons though, as whimsical as it sounds. Call me old-fashioned McSweeney’s, but this isn’t a great medium for print, and besides, the balloons had a strange, off-putting smell to them, which made blowing them up kinda gross … so minus a half a star for that.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The packaging is cool and the idea of stories on balloons is really neat. Seeing the unfilled balloons with their tiny text was neat but the execution failed. My balloons each varied in their legibility, with some of the words being cut off entirely. The stories on the balloons were mostly uninteresting although there was a gem or two. The rest of the stories were, as has been the case with previous McSweeney's issues, really spectacular.

[Brandon Forsyth · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been a long time since I enjoyed an issue of McSweeney’s as much as this! The story balloons are obviously very fun and whimsical, and there’s a spirit of imagination and creativity that suffuses the collection that’s been desperately missing from some of the other recent (very serious, very somber) issues. Standouts include C Pam Zhang’s DAD.ME, Lesley Nneka Arimah’s SKINNED, and Sarah Wisby’s AMBIVALENT.

[derek allard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like any literary magazine / journal there are hits and misses but McSweeney's tends to get more hits and when they hit they are home runs, not just solid singles. #53 is no different. The home run is "Unsound" by Maria Reva. It's an amazing story and the writing is just awesome. That story alone is worth picking this up.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The balloons are a tremendously good gimmick, even if the stories on said balloons are hit-or-miss (Machado's is far and away the best, not least of all b/c it's my kind of thing). The stories in the book half of the issue are quite strong as well, although they are all (as always) a mileage-may-vary sort of thing.

[D'Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really great stories in here. The idea of putting stories on balloons is clever and makes for a cool looking issue, but the idea of having to blow up the balloons is what kept me from finishing this issue for so long. Thankfully I found this: https://banffcentrelibraryandarchives...

You're welcome.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strongest issue of mcsweeneys in a while, despite the balloon gimmick. I mean the balloon stories weren’t bad, just annoying and kind of smelly. And the stories in the bound book were almost all good. I don’t appreciate the inclusion of novel excerpts, seems a little crass and off-theme.

[Kevin Vognar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dark one. I feel like it's kind of cheap to write about thoughtless or unreasonable people to get an emotional reaction. Or maybe I'm a little too squishy these days, but I want stories with a little more kindness in them.

I dig the balloon-stories, though!

[Kokie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of short stories, but I found more enjoyment in the first few stories than in the stories at the end of the book. Most of the stories made me think and were intriguing in the way they framed political and social issues.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection about the female experience. All strong stories, almost entirely written by women and featuring an interesting science fiction or absurdist slant. Also, the stories on balloons are great fun.

[Gerard Van Elzen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great issue. My favourites:
C. Pam Zhang: DAD.ME
Julia Dixon Evans: Vinegar on the lips of girls
Chelsea Bieker: Keep her down
Lesley Nneka Arimah: Skinned
And I think that boatbuilder novel by Mr Gumbiner might be really good.
(Didn't read the balloons though, that would've ruined them.)

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit. Excellent stuff.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good issue. Particularly enjoyed Unsound, Angel in the Architecture & This Temporary

[Mills College Library]

Coll.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of great, weird stories in this collection. Although the balloons delivered a dose of camp and whimsy, the very short stories on them were quite good.

[Parashar B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not read the balloons.

[Mundy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tend to devour McSweeney’s like popcorn, so it means a lot when issue really stands out. The curation of stories in #53 is just fantastic. Of special note are C Pam Zhang, whose debut novel is forthcoming, and Lesley Nneka Arimah. Text aside, the packaging is just so fun (short stories or Ted on balloons that you blow up and read-really!) and reminds me of the playfulness that got me into McSweeney’s nearly 10 years ago. Good job!

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

A friend at work brought the stories on balloons into the office to share, which was a fun concept, then she lent me this collection of short stories published quarterly. I wasn’t provided much background, so I don’t know if there’s a theme to each collection, but these all seem to be intended for women, or at least they’re all female driven narratives, with all but one being written by women. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t science fiction (which is what these appear to be) so they didn’t really appeal to me, and I also found them to be mostly somber and sorrowful, which I wasn’t expecting either. I’m not sure if this is reflective of all the quarterly publications or not, but I probably won’t be revisiting this quarterly without more information beforehand.

[David Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first experience with McSweeny's outside of the Internet Tendency and I'm impressed. I liked all but two of the stories. I think my favorite was one set in a world where adult women have to live nude until they get married, in a sort of Western riff on veiling. The book came with 7 additional stories printed on inflatable balloons, which I hated. There's no way I'm going to inflate a balloon to read a story once and then lose it forever, so the balloons will remain in their little baggie.